


orange is the warmest color

by Meatball42



Category: Original Work
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Kindness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:36:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: Hoax could not have imagined this.





	orange is the warmest color

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).

“Time for bed,” Cress hummed, bustling around the small cabin. She blew out candles, tucked away books, stored the last of the stew in her magic cooling box.

Hoax watched with interest. He’d stumbled into Cress’s garden patch in the middle of the woods quite by accident, and the elderly witch had taken him in with no questions asked. She was the first human he’d seen aside from his creator, and was so far turning out to be much nicer. 

“I don’t sleep,” Hoax said. “But I can go into power-save mode, if you prefer.”

Cress suddenly looked quite angry.

  
  


When the harvest had been taken in and the preservable foods preserved and the Samhain spells cast and the warmth charms on the cottage renewed, Cress invited Hoax to stay.

“We get along fair wonderful, I think,” she said with a smile. “It has been nice, having someone to talk to in between coven meetings.”

Hoax was stunned both by the invitation, and by Cress’s use of ‘someone’ rather than ‘something.’ It was a consistent kindness from Cress, but one which had not yet rooted itself in his code.

“That sounds… wonderful,” he answered. He decided he liked that word.

  
  


In the evenings, Cress turned on her magic radio when she went to bed so that Hoax could listen throughout the night. He didn’t like power-save mode, and Cress said she didn’t mind that Hoax could watch her while she slept, the way his creator had minded. Hoax liked having the time to think through the events of the day and integrate things into his mainframe.

The magic radio, for example, was magic because it could tune into stations that were very far away. The magic acted on the machine.

Hoax wondered what wonderful magics Cress could work on him.

  
  


But one night, there was a blizzard. Hoax watched Cress shiver in her sleep, the cold piercing right through that warming charms they’d cast on the cottage.

Hoax worried. Cress had old bones. They ached when it was cold. She rubbed salves on them, mixed from plants in her garden. How much would she ache from this cold?

Eventually, Cress shivered herself awake.

“C-could you put some m-more wood on the fire, my dear?” she asked.

Hoax stood up to obey her request, but he hesitated. He wanted to make a counter suggestion. His creator would not have liked that, but he didn’t think Cress would mind.

“I could direct heat to my outer layers, and act as a heat source for you.”

He waited nervously.

“That sounds wonderful, Hoax.”

She lifted her piled quilts and beckoned him over. Hoax barely fit on the bed, but Cress sighed in pleasure at her much warmer bed.

“Thank you, my dear.”

“You’re welcome,” Hoax said. He meant many things by it, things he didn’t have words for, but he certainly meant that she was welcome to anything, at any time.

They listened to the radio together until Cress fell back to sleep.


End file.
